


i won't stumble as i follow down this path (cause words that are spoken are just other things to have)

by jublis



Series: heirloom [9]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Brother-Sister Relationships, F/M, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Rivalry, at this point i'm just poking azula's redemption arc with a stick and hoping it moves, for both of them, ignores the comics harder than ever, mentions of depersonalization and panic attacks, sort of character study, suki: zuko you cant blame yourself for everything thats ever happened, zuko processes a feeling, zuko: ok but get this. i can try
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:40:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: “Did you know”, he answered, “that Azula’s favorite flowers are fire lilies? Every birthday, she asked for the ballroom to be decorated with them. During our tutoring lessons, she’d doodle them on the inside of her hands so she could hide them quick—dozens and dozens of small flowers, connected to each other by little stems.” Zuko leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “Of course, she always made a mess. Ink all over her clothes, ink all over her notes. But she got away with it, every time.”And Suki’s eyes weren’t sad. They were so, so tired. “Why do you hold on to all that, Zuko?”Zuko shrugged. “Where can I put it down?”Or, it takes Zuko one year to visit his sister again. Featuring birthday weeks, struggling with your own goodness, and a future.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: heirloom [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808977
Comments: 118
Kudos: 901





	i won't stumble as i follow down this path (cause words that are spoken are just other things to have)

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello! so. i am really proud of this one. usually it takes me a couple hours to write a fic, but this one took me three days. i hope you like it. i really do.
> 
> i think we're finally getting to that point where if you want to understand some of the things in here, you should probably read the other works first???? this is exciting!
> 
> title is from "window," by nana grizol.
> 
> see y'all at the end notes!

**i.**

“If I do remember correctly,” Azula says, “I told you that if you came to say goodbye, I would burn down everything you love.”

Zuko raises an eyebrow. “It was everything I had, actually,” he answers. “And I’m not here to say goodbye, am I?”

Azula smiles crookedly, her lips looking more like a wound on her face than an actual show of joy. “Oh, brother,” she says, leaning slightly forward, off-balance by the way her arms are tightened up around her. “Always so _literal_.”

Zuko holds her gaze for a few seconds, and incredibly enough, he isn’t the first one to look away. Azula’s eyes are— _hard_ to look at right now, for lack of a better expression. They keep drifting, one minute there and then gone, the pupils so dilated they seem like empty spaces in the middle of her face. Her hair is askew, not tied up in the topknot she so loved and respected, but falling down her shoulders, twisted around her neck and slightly sticking to her face with sweat. Sometimes her face will stretch into a frown at thin air, or a ghost of a grin will trace its path before disappearing altogether. 

She’s fifteen years old.

Zuko hates this place.

Suki told him, again and again, that he didn’t have to do it. She sat at the corner of his bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around herself, while he stood in front of the window and watched the sunrise. Sokka was passed out next to her, his mouth hanging slightly open, hand touching Suki’s leg, and the other splayed out on the other side, reaching for both of them even in his sleep. 

Summer nights. Always restless. 

“If you’re doing this because you feel like you owe something to her, Zuko,” Suki said, “you _don’t_.”

He drummed his fingers over the windowsill, trying to pretend he could look at the red and oranges of the sky and not taste ash in his mouth. That the courtyard his room overlooked wasn’t the same place Azula had laid, screaming like her heart was being ripped out of her chest, like the world was ending and she wanted to swallow down every last bit of it before it was all over. 

“I never liked the word _owe_ ,” Zuko answered. “It seems too small.” 

Suki’s eyes were shadowed even under the rising light. “Azula doesn’t fall on your shoulders and your shoulders only.” Her fingers were slightly stroking Sokka’s back, up and down in circles, as his hold tightened on Suki’s arm, knuckles white. “You can’t blame yourself for every single thing that has happened, Zuko.”

A smile. It’s a conversation they’ve had many times. 

“Did you know”, he answered, “that Azula’s favorite flowers are fire lilies? Every birthday, she asked for the ballroom to be decorated with them. During our tutoring lessons, she’d doodle them on the inside of her hands so she could hide them quick—dozens and dozens of small flowers, connected to each other by little stems.” Zuko leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “Of course, she always made a mess. Ink all over her clothes, ink all over her notes. But she got away with it, every time.”

And Suki’s eyes weren’t sad. They were so, so tired. “Why do you hold on to all that, Zuko?”

Zuko shrugged. “Where can I put it down?”

Now, he sits. Crosses his leg and uncrosses it, shuffling on an uncomfortable wooden chair inside a room that smells too clean, with walls too wide and window too narrow. His sister sits across from him, head tilted back to the ceiling, eyes closed and shoulders tense, head moving like an animal who hears something disturbing in the distance. 

Zuko wonders if he should have sent any letters, before. He’d thought giving her space was a kindness. But Azula has never known what to do with _kindness_. 

“I brought you something,” he says, quietly. Doesn’t dare raise his voice, not because he’s scared of her, but because he has the growing notion that she might be scared of him. 

Azula’s head whips back to him so suddenly he winces in sympathy, lolling around her neck for a moment before she manages to focus on Zuko again, lips twisted into that bloody smile. “Oh, Zuzu,” she says, breathily. “You’ve brought me a gift? Have you come here to grovel for me to take the oh, so heavy crown from your head, to take the throne off your shoulders?” She goes to lean forward, but her legs can’t seem to support her weight and she falls back down. Her smile never falters, her eyes never blink for longer than half a moment. “I would take it, you know,” she murmurs, settling back into her former position. Azula’s head hangs from her neck like a ragdoll’s, her free limbs all splayed out. “From your hands. It’d be my pleasure. It’d be my _mercy_.”

Zuko tilts his head a little. “It’d be your kindness?,” he asks.

Azula stills. Her eyes seem to focus, if only a little, and the smile slips. “The only kindness I’d know,” she says, face pale. “The only one.”

Zuko feels like he should be more nervous about being here. He should be eyeing every exit with caution, making sure all the guards were positioned outside the door just like he asked, not close enough to eavesdrop but close enough to intervene. He should have asked for someone to show him just how tight Azula’s binds were, just how safe this room was. Instead, he watches this girl in front of him—this child, her face his own, drawn out and terrified, eyes blown open so wide he can see the white all around them. 

He reaches into his pocket and takes out a single fire lily, red buds still warm from how often he touched it to know if it was still there. The stem is long and curling, the colors so stark against the nothingness of this room they seem almost unreal. Zuko takes it out of his pocket and shows it to Azula, his palm turned to her. 

Her eyes narrow, lips pulling down. “Now, that’s just _mean_ ,” she croons, swaying a little, but her voice doesn’t sound quite right. “Giving a girl a flower when she doesn’t even have her hands to accept it?” Azula makes a show of pressing against her binds, and then slumps down. “I would’ve expected it from me, Zuzu, but not from you.”

“Azula,” Zuko says. “Let me.”

It’s a question. It’s an offering. They both know the word he won’t say. 

He gestures slightly towards her ear, and his fingers don’t tremble, although he feels like they should. Azula stares at the flower like it could grow wings and attack her, like she could make the red bloom into flames if she just willed it hard enough. 

Azula tilts her head to the side, and waits. This is all the answer he’ll get.

Zuko hasn’t been this close to his sister in years. They were expected to sit next to each other for family portraits, and to share a table during their tutoring sessions, and Zuko doesn’t remember ever feeling her hands on him if it wasn’t there to push and pull and pinch and burn. 

But Zuko isn’t his sister. He’s a brother. 

He pulls her hair away from her neck and her face, and she squirms a little, but doesn’t open her mouth to make him leave. He cuts off a little bit of the stem of the flower, and puts the rest of it over her ear, making sure it won’t fall before stepping away. Zuko keeps his movements precise and quick, careful not to linger, even though every inch of his body wants to just take Azula’s face in his hands and press a kiss on top of her head, and hold her while she weeps and cries and spits fire and tries to kill him, again and again. 

Zuko does none of that. As soon as he’s done, he steps away, but even so, Azula won’t meet his eye. 

(Sometimes, tenderness is the very proof that you’ve been ruined. 

Azula doesn’t know a lot about the first thing, but she needs a name to call whatever she sees in Zuko’s eyes when he looks at her. A fire that doesn’t burn, and only keeps warm. Father would have called it useless. He would have called it weak. But Father isn’t here anymore, and Azula can’t be sure of what Zuko sees in her when she presses her lips together and nods, unable to form a single word.

One time, Mai caught Azula sneaking away from a royal gathering with a noble boy, dragging him into the dark and coming out half an hour later, not a scratch on her but the slight smudge of her lipstick and a faraway gaze in her eyes. _You’re lucky it was me who saw it,_ Mai had told her. _If it was anyone else, even Ty Lee, you’d be ruined._

Azula remembers it so clearly. She can almost taste the words she’d said. _Oh, Mai, I won’t be ruined. I always bring ruin first._

That was barely two years ago. She hasn’t seen Mai in all this time.

In the corner of the room, there’s a mirror. She frowns at the reflection, and Mother’s long, pale face frowns back. Her lips never seem to form a smile, no matter what Azula does.)

Zuko says, “I should probably get going. You need to rest.”

Azula says nothing. She says nothing, and nothing, an endless amount of nothing, staring into the mirror on her wall with the flower stuck on her ear, the only splash of color against her white clothes. Zuko runs a hand through his hair, panic spiking in his chest before he remembers he asked one of his most trusted guards, Yaz, to guard his crown. Reminding Azula of everything that’s happened seemed like a mockery. 

He turns to leave. But before he does, Azula’s voice rings out behind him, strained and hoarse like she’s been screaming inside herself this whole time.

“Mother wants you to know she misses you,” she says. “I’ve been telling the woman to go away for ages, but she wouldn’t stop bothering me until I said it. So, there you go. She misses you.”

Zuko doesn’t turn to look at her. His face feels numb.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Tell her I miss her too.”

He makes it back to his room in one piece. Suki isn’t there, but Sokka is, buried under pages and pages of legal documents, ink stains all the way up from his forearms to his chin, hair tied up in a single bun on top of his head. He takes one look at Zuko and knows. 

Still, Zuko says it. He opens and closes his hands into fists, over and over again. “There’s nothing there,” he says, the words falling clumsily from his mouth. “There’s nothing there, there’s nothing there, there’s nothing _there_.”

Sokka takes his wrists, letting his fingers rest against his skin until Zuko opens his hands again, palms facing up, hands empty except for his hands. The ultimate act of surrender. 

A forehead leaning against his, a breath shared. It’s a summer’s day, but it doesn’t feel like one. It’s a summer’s day, but Zuko feels like he might never know warmth again. 

**ii.**

On the day of Zuko’s eighteenth birthday, it rains. 

He wipes his finger against the inside of the window, watching the droplets making their way down the glass. The storm is so thick with fog and heat that’s nearly impossible to see anything beyond the solitary firelight of the inner facility courtyard, slightly trembling under the howling wind. Zuko isn’t sure why the night feels so appropriate; every sound seems either too hushed or too sharp, echoing in his good ear or not reaching him well enough. There are two hundred patients in this building, with almost double the amount of staff, and yet, Zuko feels like the loneliest boy in the world.

Well, not boy. Not anymore. Though he supposes he hasn’t been one for a long time, either. 

“Sir?”

Years of practice keep Zuko from startling at the voice, but he’s sure he can’t keep the bewilderment off his face when he turns to the staff member next to him, dressed in the muted blues of a healer. The man seems barely older than Zuko himself, but the kindness of his features makes him look much older. He bows respectfully, closed fist against open palm, and Zuko bows his head in response. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was distracted. Did you call for me?”

The man nods. “Yes, sir. Your request was pretty last minute, but we managed to squeeze in a few moments for you and Lady Azula to talk.”

Zuko feels his lips twist into a smile, in spite of himself. “Was she delighted to hear from me?”

“I do not know what that would look like in Lady Azula, Fire Lord Zuko,” the man answers, completely earnest, and Zuko can only blink in surprise. “But I believe she was curious.”

_Curious_. Zuko can work with that. 

He wonders if Azula remembers what day it is. They do share the same birthday week, after all. 

When they were younger, the dates seemed thrown apart, instead of sewn together. He didn’t have the best understanding of time when he was eight, but he understood that the parties his father organized for Azula might as well be months apart of the small gatherings he allowed for Zuko, only a few days afterwards. _You should be thankful I allow anything at all,_ Ozai had reminded him, again and again. _You, who were born at night. You should be thankful for your Mother’s mercy. It’s the only thing she and I have an understanding on._

_Mother isn’t merciful for loving me_ , Zuko had whispered, once, only once. _Love isn’t a gesture of kindness. Love is something you give because you can’t help it._

That was one of Uncle’s favorite proverbs. Lu Ten had loved it also, and as far as Zuko can stretch his memory, that’s the last thing he remembers his cousin telling him before he left for the war. 

Ozai hadn’t raised his hand that time, but sometimes, Zuko almost wishes he had. Instead, he’d laughed.

Zuko can still hear that laugh in the edges of his mind, sometimes, echoing through time. The same way there’s still a boy inside him, somewhere, face jagged and twisted, clenching his fists and screaming— _I lost my honor, and I need to get it back. I need to get it back so I can go_ home — there’s that sound, lurking in the dark, jerking him awake whenever Zuko thinks he’ll be able to sleep through the night. His father had laughed, despite knowing he had ruined every beautiful thing only to prove beauty could not change him. _Something you give_ , he’d sneered. _A coward’s choice of words. The bards sing of romance and true love and kindness. But love is only a different way of earning power. To be loved is to be adored. To love is a dead man’s last wishes._

Azula is sitting cross legged on her bed, her white sleeping clothes much larger than her. Her long hair is tied back in a simple braid and she’s fiddling with the stray threads of her pants, and in that moment she looks so young Zuko barely breathes. 

She doesn’t look up as Zuko enters, staring intently at the only window in the room, though he can’t imagine she’s seeing much of anything under the fog and falling rain. He bows to the man that led him here, and the door closes behind him with a soft click. 

Brother and sister, on opposite sides of an empty room. It sounds like a story he’s heard before.

“Hi, Azula,” he says. “Happy late birthday.”

She sniffs a little, still not looking at him. “I should hardly be surprised you missed out on the actual date,” she says, haughty as ever. “They don’t let us keep track of days in this _place_ , so it would have been a nice reminder.”

Zuko sits on the small chair next to her, not daring to rise to the bed. Azula’s hands are still bound, but she isn’t wearing the straightjacket that she had on the last time he visited her. He supposes they let her out of it when she goes to sleep. It is pretty late, after all, and he did request a meeting with her out of nowhere, so she clearly wasn’t expecting him.

He doesn’t know why he’s here. The celebrations at the palace are still ongoing, he’s sure of it. All his staff and servants had been so excited to organize it, especially when he’d skipped out on a party for his previous birthday due to an assassination attempt—a long story, involving Toph’s particular brand of sneaking around, an actual secret passageway (to Sokka’s delight), and a sword duel on a roof, which sounds much cooler than what actually went down. This year, Zuko had been pretty adamant in keeping the gathering as small as possible while still being respectful, until Sokka had teamed up with Kaito to pretty much annoy him to death for an entire week until they got him to say _yes, Sokka, you can plan the party, and yes, Kaito, you can help him._

Zuko doesn’t _hate_ parties, despite whatever Toph might say. But there was just something about eighteen that seemed so final to him, so daunting, that he felt ready to crawl out of his skin. Before, any slip ups or mistakes could be excused by his young age, and the fact that Zuko never appointed a regent. But now, he’s on his own, for better or for worse. 

“Did you ever expect it?”, he asked Sokka, over the glass he’d been nursing for the past hour. 

Sokka smirked. “To make it to eighteen?”, he asked back, though he didn’t wait for Zuko to nod before answering. “I like to say I knew everything would work out in the end. But sometimes it’s nice not to lie to myself.” He took a long sip of his own drink, tipping his head back. “I never had a fucking idea where we were going with all this.”

Zuko smiled, in spite of himself. “The plan guy, he calls himself,” he said. “What a tragedy.”

“I never told Katara,” Sokka said. He wasn’t looking at Zuko, but instead at the crowd, where the bright blue of Katara’s dress was easy to see, twirling outwards and inwards from Aang’s stretched arms. “That I didn’t think I’d make it to eighteen. I wanted to protect her from the idea of my own mortality, or whatever. Especially after Dad left. But then,” he continues, and this time turns to Zuko, his expression almost wistful, “Katara turned sixteen. She and Aang had made it to the South Pole for the week while I was meeting up with some people, and Dad prepared this huge party. And the night before, she sneaked into my room, and started crying her eyes out. _Sixteen was always your age_ , she said. _And fourteen was mine. I never thought we’d grow any older_.”

Zuko sighed, short flames tinged with pink escaping from his mouth. Sokka’s gaze flicked down toward his lips for a moment, before travelling back up his face. 

“Azula turned sixteen this week,” Zuko said. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t think she’d want to see me.”

“But you want to see her,” Sokka said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “So instead of moping around here, you should go visit your sister. I’ll cover for you.”

Zuko shook his head. “I shouldn’t want to see her,” he said, unable to look at Sokka. “She’s not a good person. She doesn’t—I shouldn’t love her.”

The word left little stinging wounds in his mouth when he said it, but Sokka didn’t even blink. He reached up and pressed a small kiss to Zuko’s forehead, letting their faces rest together for a moment. “Love isn’t a should or shouldn’t thing,” he whispered. “You can’t help it.”

So Zuko sits at his little sister’s bedside, still half wearing the formal robes he’d been forced into for the night, the crown safely hidden in his pocket and hair barely hanging on a topknot. When Azula finally turns to look at him, her eyes are red rimmed, as if she’d been crying the entire time.

Zuko hadn’t heard anything. But he probably wasn’t the only one who learned that to keep quiet was to keep safe before he was even able to write his name. 

“Why are you here, Zuko?” Azula asks. Her voice isn’t small, but it isn’t loud, either. She doesn’t seem to take up as much space as she once did. “You’ve already made it clear you’re not here to gloat. You’re not having me killed for treason. You probably have a big party to attend right now, full of people who might even give a shit about you, so why do you keep coming _back_?”

There are many things he could say to that. He could let the horror he feels at the back of his throat come spilling out, awful and ragged just like he feels; he could take Azula’s hand and tell her that shame and death aren’t the only two things this world holds for her. 

But instead, he says, “I thought they didn’t let you keep track of days here. How do you know I have a party to attend?”

Azula sneers. “Just because they don’t let us doesn’t mean I _don’t_ , Zuzu.” She lifts up a hand in a little wave, which seems almost weird without the flames wreathing around her fingers. “Seven hundred and thirty sunrises and sunsets. I keep count.”

“Yeah,” Zuko murmurs. “Yeah. You would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Azula asks suddenly, eyes widening. Her gaze flickers to the corner of her room, where the mirror she keeps has its reflection turned against the wall. 

Zuko closes his hands into fists and shoves them into his pockets, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. “I didn’t mean anything by it,”’ he says. “It just sounded like the sort of thing you’d do.”

“You don’t know me,” Azula spits out, but her hands are shaking where she hugs them against her chest. “You don’t know _anything_ about me.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Zuko concedes, tilting his head. “But just because I don’t, doesn’t mean I never _did_.”

Azula blinks at him, falling back into a more relaxed position. Zuko doesn’t know what—the healers call it delusions, but he hates that word—she’s seeing, exactly, but whatever it is, it seems to calm her. On the first time he’d visited her, she’d talked about their mother as if Ursa was still there, chiding and nagging at her daughter just as much as she did in life. 

Suki is really into ghost stories. Sometimes, when she, Zuko and Sokka are the only ones awake in the palace, she’ll guide them through the darkened halls, eyes wide and whispers sharp, saying something or other about the people who’ve never moved on into whatever comes after the Spirit World. _Residual hauntings,_ she calls them. _Ghosts of the past forever trapped in a snippet of time, forever reenacting the moment of their own demise. Forever revisiting the moments that hurt them._

_Why?_ Sokka asks, every time. Sometimes Suki will only smile. Sometimes she’ll keep talking like she never heard the question in the first place. But one time, and only once, she said, _Because you will always remember what you were doing when it hurts the most._

A great storyteller.

Zuko can see it all in this narrow room and these blank walls. The deaths staining his father’s hands. The crime scenes left of brother and sister. And their mother—what’s a good ghost story without a vanishing act?

“The wordplay,” Azula whispers. She’s looking at him, gold eyes cloudy again, but she’s looking at him. “You were always good at that. Father told the tutors to never encourage you, so they never said so. But you were always good at picking up words and saying what you wanted them to mean.” She bites her own cheek, like a child again. “I guess you never learned how to do it out loud, when it actually mattered. But you were always good at it.”

Zuko doesn’t know what to say. 

Azula sniffs, loudly, and motions to the door with her head. She can’t reach to wipe her own face, and Zuko doesn’t offer to do it for her. He knows a dismissal when he sees one. 

(Azula has learned a thing or two about kindness.

There’s a young girl that sits with her during lunchtime, oblivious to the glares Azula sends her way. She talks and talks and talks, moving her hands wildly, weaving story after story. Azula tries not to listen, until she does. One time, she laughs.

That same day, the girl comes up to her when they’re outdoors and lets a flower crown fall onto Azula’s lap, before walking away without a single word. The flowers aren’t fire lilies, so Azula doesn’t hold much care for them, and it isn’t even pretty to begin with—a mess of whites and yellows and greens sticking out, pointy and sharp and uncomfortable.

It would be so easy to set it on fire. But Azula hasn’t done that in months.

She places it on her head.)

She doesn’t wish him happy birthday, and a part of Zuko feels foolish for expecting her to. He gets up to leave, and when he turns around, closing the door behind him, Azula waves.

  
  


**iii.**

On the day of the eclipse, Azula calls for him. Aang stares at Zuko for a total of thirty seconds before letting out a whoop so loud it makes even the servants across the room flinch.

“What the fuck was _that_ about?” Zuko asks, lowering his hand from where it was covering his ear. 

Aang claps excitedly, a huge grin dawning on his face. The servant that just delivered the news, Rin, stands next to him with her hands clasped behind her back, a mild expression of utter confusion on her face. Zuko has to say he shares the sentiment. And Aang, being Aang, only keeps making wild gestures between Rin and Zuko, and then pointing at one of the windows lining the walls of the council room. Then he throws his arms around Zuko’s neck, nearly sending them both to the ground.

Dealing with an armful of fifteen year-old airbender is already hard enough when Zuko knows what’s going on, so he just leans his head over the back of his chair and looks at Rin, who even though he’s seeing upside down is most likely smiling, and lets Aang cuddle him for a moment. 

“Zuko,” Aang says, pulling back and clapping his hands again, before he catches the blankness of Zuko’s stare and deflates, arms still up in the air. “Why am I the only one celebrating here?”

“Don’t worry, Avatar Aang,” says Rin, formal as ever. “We’re used to it. You do this at least once every time you visit.”

Zuko points a finger at her. “The woman has a point,” he says. “Now, please, get out of my lap.”

“Okay, okay,” Aang concedes, airbending himself back into his own chair with an unnecessary flourish. “I wasn’t aware I stumbled into Fire Lord Grumpy from the Grump Nation, Your Grumpiness.”

“I hate it here,” Zuko says, to no one in particular. 

“Besides the point!” Aang exclaims, leaning forward over the table again. “Why aren’t you excited? You heard what Rin said, didn’t you?”

Zuko straightens his robes, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “Yes, I did. Honestly, Aang, you’re acting like I haven’t seen my sister in years. I have been known to visit her once or twice.”

Aang furrows his brow, as if trying to catch Zuko on a lie. “Zuko,” he says, “when was the last time your sister was the one who wanted to see _you_?”

Ah, yes. Zuko’s a fucking idiot. 

“Oh,” is all he says. “I don’t—know?”

His voice cracks on the last word, and he has never been more thankful that Aang’s the one here with him, and not Toph or either of his partners. Because where Toph would threaten to punch the living daylights out of him, and Suki would twist her expression into her neutral face of displeasure until he crumbled, and Sokka would lay his head down on the table and refuse to get up for several hours, Aang only looks overly sympathetic, his grey eyes wide and bright as he stares Zuko down. 

Listen—Zuko isn’t the best at processing his own emotions at the best of times. All he signed up for was a normal day, full of normal meetings, in which everyone would feel vindicated and pacified by Aang’s presence, since he was visiting for the month, and then maybe he’d write a letter for Uncle Iroh if he was feeling extra passionate, and that would be it. 

And then, Azula.

Story of his life.

“I didn’t realize,” Zuko says, his face feeling slightly numb. “I didn’t even— _Agni_.”

“Zuko,” Aang says. “Breathe.”

Zuko _is_ breathing. He’s sure he is. But his heart doesn’t fit him quite right and his ears are ringing and his hands are cold and _his sister wants to see him_. He’s been visiting her as regularly as he can for the past two years, fitting her into his schedule between meetings and travels, sitting next to her by the bed or taking a stroll on the gardens. Sometimes she greets him; sometimes she says nothing at all; sometimes she screams at him until he leaves, threats falling from her lips like the fire she can’t seem to summon anymore. Zuko prides himself on being someone who doesn’t break easily, on not letting anyone sway him to one direction or the other. Years of reigning have taught him that, but he has no ground to stand on with Azula. If she wants him to leave, he does. If she wants him to stay, he will.

Father would say that makes him weak. Zuko would tell him to shut the fuck up. 

“Did she say what she wanted?” Zuko asks, turning his head to Rin, who raises her hands in a pacifying motion. He can hear the raggedness of his own voice, but she’s kind enough not to mention it.

“No, my lord,” she says. “I was just informed she would like to see you as soon as possible. In less—in less nicer words, I mean.”

He barks out a laugh. “Of course she did _. Of course she did_.”

“Zuko,” Aang says, placing his hand on Zuko’s wrist, tapping one finger rhythmically. It’s something he’s practiced with Sokka, and the action is so familiar Zuko feels his shoulders relax. His next breath comes easier, and Aang gives him a little smile. “Hi. So,” he adds, leaning forward so he can stare Zuko down properly. “Katara says I’m not the best at dealing with family issues because the way I experience family is different than how everyone else does. So I’m not going to try and give you advice.”

“Okay,” Zuko says, “Okay.”

“Do you want to see her?” Aang enunciates clearly, keeping his expression earnest. Zuko appreciates that Aang will support him whatever his answer is, but he would also like if anyone gave him any indication of how he should feel about this. The nervousness lodged on his throat is completely other to the blinding relief curling in his chest, or to the stinging in his eyes. He doesn’t know how he should feel, so apparently, he’s feeling everything.

He turns to Rin. “Warn the guards. I’m going alone.”

As soon as he says the words, two of the Kyoshi Warriors stationed next to the door open their mouths to protest—Naomi and Yumi, Suki’s second and third in command, are probably the only ones who feel comfortable enough to mouth off to him without facing anything but a frown. They’ve seen him in much more perilous situations (and no, Zuko is _not_ going to think about Sokka’s seventeenth birthday party, not now). 

“Fire Lord Zuko,” Naomi says, her painted eyebrows drawn into a frown. “You know we don’t usually have objections about you visiting your sister by yourself, sir, but today’s the day of the eclipse. If anything happens—”

“I appreciate the concern,” Zuko says, “but I am not defenseless without my bending.”

“She didn’t mean to imply that!”, Yumi exclaims immediately, grasping for the fan in her belt. “We know you’re not defenseless. But, sir, neither is your sister.”

Zuko looks at his hands, gently freeing himself from Aang’s grasp. “I like to believe that if she wanted to kill me,” he says, “she would have done it already.”

“You know,” Aang says, conversationally, moving himself so he’s sitting upside down on the chair, legs thrown over the back. “That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” Zuko says. “It’s all I’ve got.”

**. . .**

The healers don’t seem surprised to see him. One of the staff, Maki, only sighs and throws Zuko the key, motioning with his head towards the hall of Azula’s room. “She refused to come in for breakfast,” he warns him. “She might be a little feisty. More than usual.”

Zuko shakes his head, smiling. If he opens his mouth, he doesn’t know what’ll come out of it. He twists the key between his fingers once, twice, before fitting it into the keyhole. The hesitation could be what does it for Azula; even though he hasn’t seen her firebend since their Agni Kai, she seems to be able to feel his chi the same way he can feel hers, twisted and ragged but still burning inside her. She always knows where he is, no matter where he stands. 

“Azula,” Zuko says, as a greeting. His sister waves her hand in his general direction as an acknowledgment, and he lets himself in.

Azula is perched up on the chair Zuko usually sits on, staring intently at the mirror on her wall as she moves her head from side to side, searching for something. Her hair is loose and unkempt as ever, tumbling down her shoulders, and Zuko has scarcely a moment to wonder when he’d ever come to associate the word unkempt with Azula, when she turns around and fixes him with a glare.

“Are you going to just stand there, like a servant?” Azula asks, making another impatient gesture. “Sit down, for Agni’s sake.”

She turns back to the mirror almost immediately, and Zuko swallows his own tongue. He doesn’t—this is not familiar territory for him. The two of them sitting in the same room, in silence, not looking or trying to not look at each other. They’ve never hung out because they wanted each other’s company, and if they ever did seek each other out, it was more out of necessity than anything. Azula needed something to poke at to see how it reacted; Zuko needed the shallow feeling of protection that came with being around Azula, of exchanging one hurt for the other.

So he waits. He’s aware he wasn’t able to ditch his royal robes before coming here, and he’s aware of how messy his topknot is, when he barely remembered to take off his crown before walking into the room, in his haste. And Azula isn’t looking at him, but it’s been two years and Zuko still isn’t sure how much she _knows_. 

He’s asked the healers to not mention to her anything that’s been happening -- politically wise -- in the Fire Nation since the war ended. Azula was sharpened into a weapon ever since she was a child; she was not only born into the war, she was made for it. And Zuko knows, better than anyone, what it means to lose the thing that drives you. 

He doesn’t think Azula would survive it. He doesn’t think she’d want to. But the thing is, Azula isn’t stupid. 

She turns to him with her mouth set in a firm line, and says, “I want you to cut off my hair.”

Zuko can only blink. “You want me,” he repeats, “to cut off your hair.”

Azula rolls her eyes, curling into herself where she sits, somehow being able to fit all of her limbs despite how much she’s grown in the past year. “I mean, not you, necessarily,” she says, twirling one strand of hair in her finger. “But I at least want someone or something to cut my hair with. So, you know. Chop, chop.” She claps her hands in time with her words, and this is so not what Zuko thought was going to happen. 

“Azula,” he says. “This is—this is a mental health facility. I can’t walk in here armed, or carrying anything sharp. It’s in the regulations.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “You’ve read the _regulations_?” 

Azula looks like she doesn’t know whether to look disgusted or to laugh. Zuko shrugs. “Of course I read them. I needed to know how they would treat you. And they’ve been,” he takes a deep breath, forcing himself to make eye contact with his sister. “They’ve been good, haven’t they? They’ve been good.”

(Azula might understand kindness a little bit better, but she will never, ever know what _goodness_ is supposed to be.

She thought that to be good was to be the best. To be good was to be safe, to be good was to be powerful. She mastered firebending when she was twelve; her flames burned bright blue, when colors hadn’t been seen in a firebender for years; she was quicker, faster, trickier, smarter. Azula was never good, she was _great_. 

Then she overheard some of the staff talking while she sat outside in the early morning, hands bound behind her back with the dampness of the grass seeping into her pants as she breathed in and out, her chi stuttering and limping along with it. _I don’t know what I expected from Fire Lord Zuko. Besides his banishment, I’d never even heard much of him,_ one of the healers had whispered to the others as they strolled past Azula, as if they’d forgotten who she fucking was. _With the family he hails from_ _—_ _I certainly never expected him to be good._

Zuko wasn’t great. Zuko was _good_. And for some reason, goodness had all the Fire Nation citizens following her brother like newborn turtleducks, stumbling over their feet and looking at him for guidance. 

Azula was always taught that fear was the only reliable way. Father had repeated it, again and again, whenever she urged him to see a new move she’d mastered, or a new lesson she’d completed, each and every time she went for him, looking for something Mother would not give her. _Let’s see to it that you don’t turn out soft like your brother_ , he’d said, the word brother like an insult. _Ursa wants the boy to be a good person, Azula, but that is a meaningless notion. A leader who is good thinks they must earn the respect of their people. A leader who is great demands it. And you, my daughter, will be great._

_You will be great_ . Not _I will make you great._ Not _I will teach you how to get there._ Only you _will_. And that did not feel like certainty; it did not feel like she was believed in. It felt like a condition. 

Goodness. What a mild, awful word.)

Azula looks at him like she could rip his throat off with her teeth. “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she sneers. “You’re the Fire Lord, _Zuzu_. Make the arrangements.”

Zuko freezes, but as he hears the words, he finds out he was already expecting them. He’s not afraid of what Azula will do; the eclipse is rising in an hour’s time, and as deadly as she could be even without her firebending, she hasn’t been allowed to train since she started her treatment here. Instead, there’s something else making his mouth taste sour, and pinpricks rise all over his skin. Zuko looks at his sister’s face, which is growing into its sharp edges and high cheekbones and tilted eyebrows, and he is so, so ashamed.

“How long have you known?”, he asks, voice slightly rough. 

“You thought I hadn’t figured it out?” Azula does smile then, leaning her head on her hand. “Please, Zuzu, I deserve some credit. I knew what the outcome of the Agni Kai would be if you managed to defeat me, and Father would never leave me to rot in this place. He would have killed me first.”

Zuko sighs. “He would have,” he says, unfazed. “Is rotting all what you’ve done here, then?”

“We are not having this conversation,” Azula says, turning away from him. “I said, make the arrangements. If you can’t, or if you don’t want to, get out of my sight before I commit some horrible crime.”

In spite of himself, Zuko’s lips quirk up. “ _Some_ horrible crime? May I at least know which one?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Azula says, and if he didn’t know any better, she would sound fond.

Zuko reaches into the belt he wears under his robes, where the dagger Uncle Iroh gave him still sits, day after day. It’s still sharp. Just because he can’t bring anything sharp in, doesn’t mean he _doesn’t_. Sometimes, he really is his sister’s brother. 

He hands it out to Azula, hilt first. She stares at it like she thinks he’s going to suddenly lunge at her, her eyes wide and face pale, scared like a child. It’s the sort of thing that would have hurt him, once— _Doesn’t she trust me? I’ve done it all for her, and she doesn’t trust me?_ _—_ , but Zuko knows this sort of wound. Sometimes, Sokka will sneak up on him from behind, poking at his sides and making him yelp and stumble. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes Zuko will laugh and push Sokka’s chest, before drawing him in for a kiss. But sometimes he crashes down to the floor, and there’s someone looming over him, looking down, and it doesn’t matter who it is. It makes Zuko shake until he feels like his bones will rattle off his body.

So he holds it out to her and waits until she gathers herself and takes it. And when she does, she bows her head a little, mouthing words he’s never heard from her before. _Thank you._

Out loud, she says, “I guess _this_ will do,” and turns back to the mirror.

Zuko inches forward on the bed, until he’s sitting directly behind her. When Azula catches his eye on the mirror, her face pales so quickly he thinks she’s going to pass out. Instead, she says, voice shrill, “Zuko, stay away from the mirror. Don’t let me see you. Zuko, _don’t let me see you there_.”

He backs away immediately, until he’s sure she can’t see his reflection. Azula’s breathing is ragged, like the air was stolen out of her lungs and leaving her starving. She cradles the knife as a small child would cradle their parent’s hand, if the world were a little bit kinder. She holds it until she can breathe again, and Zuko doesn’t move a muscle. It still seems weird to see her fall apart like this, when she was the untouchable one for so long. But Zuko is older now, and he knows that being put together is just a matter of who’s better at making up for the cracks. 

“I’m going to make the first cut,” Azula says, voice trembling. Her hand on the hilt of the dagger never falters. They were taught well. “And then you’ll straighten it. But you’ll do that away from the mirror.”

Something in Zuko’s chest falters. He knows what she means—he remembers the forest, Uncle’s steady breaths, the softness of the earth as he knelt in it and cut off his phoenix’s tail, the hollowness in his skin as he watched it drift away on the river. A traitor’s confession. The first cut symbolizes cutting off the strings that tie them to the Fire Nation. As Zuko gathered his hair up and sliced through it, he was letting go of it all; his home, his family, his throne. It was a decision made because there was no other. This, however, is not. They both know what this means. 

“Azula,” Zuko says. “Why?”

Azula doesn’t look at him, gathering all her hair into her open palm. “There will never be a place for me in your reign,” she says, matter of fact. “I might as well dress the part.”

“ _No_.” Zuko’s voice is so rough that it makes both of them startle, and he takes a deep breath before continuing. “There will always be a place for you in the Fire Nation, so long as I have any say in it. Azula,” his voice breaks, “Azula, I want you in my life.”

She inhales like he just punched her, and before he can say anything else, Azula raises the dagger and slices through her hair in a simple blow, letting the strands fall to the floor. What remains settles just above her shoulders, edges uneven. And when she turns to look at him, Azula’s face is flushed, and softer than he’s ever seen it. “Oh, brother,” she says. “I’m not doing this for your sake.” She holds the dagger out to him, hilt first, just as he did for her. “I’ll turn the chair away from the mirror. I want it all gone. Leave nothing of it.”

Zuko takes the dagger, trying to not let his voice shake as he says, “I should have known.”

Azula stands up to push her chair, and as she does, she smiles at him. “Come on, Zuzu. You were always the closest one to Uncle. I figured you would know what I mean when I say hair grows back.”

As she sits in front of him, head tilted down so he can reach her, Zuko’s mouth tastes like salt. Because when he cut off his hair that day, he knelt to the floor and cried like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. And Uncle held him close, always able to make Zuko feel like a child, and whispered, _Sometimes, you need to burn it all to the ground, so you can give it a chance to grow back again. Nothing really ends, no matter how final the actions of men._

Zuko shaves his sister’s head.

**iv.**

(Azula is allowed out of the facility when she turns seventeen. She leaves in the dead of night, all she owns tied to her back with one of her shirts, and doesn’t step back into the Fire Nation for five years.

Katara asks Zuko if he’s mad at her for never saying goodbye. Zuko tells her that not saying goodbye means they’re destined to see each other again. As he echoes Aang’s words, he prays to everything he deems holy that he is right.

They will see each other again in the eighth year of Zuko’s reign. Azula will be dressed in a mixture of Earth Kingdom greens and browns and a muddy red jacket, with a smudge of dirt on her face and her hair just long enough to fit into a braid. A traveller’s clothes. Zuko will be sparing with Toph in the courtyard, drenched in casual clothes and sweat, and when he sees her, his heart breaks. It breaks only so something else can grow in its place. 

Azula will look at her brother, and bow with a flourish. Her smile will not be a wound.

“Hello, brother,” she’ll say. “Miss me?”

“Hello, Azula,” he’ll answer. “You have no idea.”)

**Author's Note:**

> HI!!!! I REALLY REALLY HOPE Y'ALL LIKED THIS.
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated! if you want to yell at me, you can do that on twitter @bornfrombeauty. til next time!


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